Without another word Xavier plunged the blade into Connor’s chest, ignoring the tears streaming down both their cheeks, and he knew that no matter why he did this Xavier would never be able to forget how all of this horror could have been avoided.

I will follow you I didn’t want to at the start When you kept shining that spot light on me Blinking Blinding I didn’t like what you said What you were finding As you walked around Tut Tut Tutting Then muttering All That Muttering Nearly drove me mad But now I see it was me […]

Wedding Cake We eat the top of your wedding cake, Stale sugar pieces cracking our teeth, Promising each mouthful To be the last, Buttercream drooling from Sticky fingers, Pregnant with cream, Pink pearls to be kissed. Plump lips wait, Shivering from loneliness. We listen to the screaming downstairs […]

Between broaching the busy season at my day job and the mounds of grief, I’ve been crawling out of my skin. There was no writing. There wasn’t even reading. I even considered deleting my author page and quitting my blogs. (Stop panicking, I didn’t give into the crazy.) Determined to break out of my funk, […]

I’ve been working on this damn thing for longer than I really should, and I’ve never really been happy with it.

This patchwork of chapters has benefited from the various stages of my writing ability as I’ve revisited it time and again over the past twelve years, and in January I decided enough is enough, am I ever going to use it? No.

So rather than give up on the characters and world that I created – I’ve grown quite attached to them – I decided to rewrite the whole novel from scratch…as a science fiction novel. So that’s what i’m doing.

I’m roughly halfway through the first draft of the novel and making steady progress, but as this is my first full length novel I thought i’d see if I could enlist my friends and supporters to take a look and feed back any inconsistencies, cracks and/or spelling mistakes…

One thing everyone assumes about self-publishing is that all you have to do is throw some cheap romantic cliches on a sheet of paper and make a cool $10k. But here in the real world we all have to decide whether we’ll try and get rich quick, which isn’t possible unless you scam, or whether you’ll take the time, dedication, and appreciation for you craft to create a product that not only will people want, but will keep them coming back for more. The most common difference between a successful author and a failed author is one gives up too soon. People write romance, not out of love but out of thinking the market is easy, and the result isn’t a labor of love or a desire to give readers what they want because their tastes are respected, but a book that will make a few sales then fade with the author’s name.

I respect myself and my readers, especially you loyal followers, too much to do that. This blog isn’t dead, but it is quiet as I focus on building a back catalog and pulling double shifts in order to afford editors and others to make my works more than good, but great because my readers deserve the best I can do. As I shift from pure erotica to romance I find myself falling in love with writing again.

some of the first stories I loved in my formative years were Lifetime Network’s romances and the intense made-for-TV dramas that were peppering the airwaves. Intense stories became cliches, but those cliches have roots in genuine human emotions. They’ve been belittled, but The Burning Bed touched on genuine fears in a society where regardless of race, class, or age women have a specific place in their relationships and how that can spiral into a nightmare Where the Heart Is touches on the harsh realities of being a young mother in rural America and the fear that you having been on “the wrong” path means you can’t love someone on the “right” without hurting them. Outlander is massively popular because it is genuine in its fantasy and romantic elements. A heroine is torn between one constraint in one time and another in another time; one love in the past and one in the present. What all of these stories have in common is sincerity.

They aren’t money grabs though their creators wanted to make money. They aren’t snubbing their noses up at their cliches. They’re using what we recognize and building very human stories in ways that leave you unable to look away. Sincerity makes the author successful. Sincerity gets you an audience that will always be in your corner even if it is only to debate you. Before I publish my next work I want to take time to make sure it is everything I know it needs to be so that you all can enjoy it, and see that it isn’t a money grab. Self-publishing isn’t just a scheme to me, but a dream and a love. Authenticity is how you write from tone to creating characters that are more people than props, more than simple projections for readers but vibrant heroes we root for and cry for. Authenticity is in short, everything.
I believe I captured that in a fun way in my first erotica Dirty Honey and Suffer Too Good. They’re stories about the erotic worlds of submission and domination, but they’re stories about relationships…about quirks that make our sexual lives special. The unique perspective an author brings to their work can and should enrich a genre. If you don’t bring that then you won’t succeed. If you don’t bring that then you’re insulting your audience. By god I get messages from people who dislike my stories, but one thing I’ve never been told is that my work feels fake. My editing? Self-editing. Sloppy? No, but some have rightfully said they need work. I’m now able to give money and time to my works

I’ll give you the number one tip to success in self-publishing that will mean something…be sincere. Don’t talk down to your audience, don’t just spout cliches, and don’t think you can just put out one book and make money.

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Rosie’s World

Tucked in the quiet of an east coast metropolis with a cup of rooibos tea, buried in a pile of well loved scarves and one over loved dog, Rosie D. Ruthers spends her time writing her lust filled dramas. Dedicated to what she calls “Porn with Purpose” she has invested herself in creating erotica that not only arouses, but attracts the reader with compelling characters from a variety of backgrounds.